He picked spots for the grouping. His brown fingers pointed. He named attitudes, dropping his lids as he built the picture with glances at the water colour sketch in his hand. An intricate chatter began on the stage. Gurdy slipped up the aisle and joined Olive under the balcony. “How careful he is,” she whispered, “like a ballet master.” Gurdy nodded, “No one’ll move without being told to. The whole thing’s planned. He’s going to run the lights himself in Boston, next Monday.” “You’ll go up there with him? He looks dreadfully thin.” His black height made a centre against the footlights. His mastery of this human paint was impressive, admirable. He visibly laboured, silent, listening. She asked, “Would he work as hard over an ordinary, commercial play?” “No. Oh, he’d work hard but not as hard as this.” Margot glanced across Olive, then at her watch. She said, “Let’s clear out, Olive. Teatime.” “I’d much rather stay here. Fascinating.” “But you told Mrs. Marlett Smith you’d come.” Olive sighed and gathered her furs. It was important that Margot should go to this tea at the Marlett Smith house. Mrs. Marlett Smith was a liberal, amusing woman who had met Mark by way of some playwright and had called on Olive at the seaside cottage. They left the theatre and Gurdy came to open the door of the blue car. To him Margot suddenly spoke, “How will dad open this silly thing in Boston, Monday night and get to Washington by Tuesday night to open ‘Todgers’?” “We’ll be there,” he said and closed the door. Olive looked back at his colourless dress, his shapely head and vanishing grave face with a frank wistfulness. “I don’t see why you should make such a point of annoying Gurdy. And why call this play silly when it’s so plainly good?... I’ve carefully refrained from asking you why you quarrelled with Gurdy. He behaves charmingly to you and keeps the peace.” “Paying him back for being nasty about ‘Todgers Intrudes.’” “But he’s not been nasty. He’s very sensibly given his opinion that it’s feeble. As it is.--The man’s taking us down Broadway. Loathsome sewer!” The motor slowly passed toward Forty Second Street and across that jam. Olive saw lean and stolid Englishmen stalking in the harsh, dusty November wind that blew women along in the whirling similitude of rotted flowers. Margot got notice, here. There was a jerk of male heads from the curb. Empty faces turned to the girl’s brilliance in rose cloth. A tanned sailor flapped his white cap. Yet in the Marlett Smith library on Park Avenue Margot was prettily discreet for half an hour below Chinese panels, among gayer frocks where she lost colour, merged in a fluctuation of dress. On the way home her restraint snapped into a “Damn!” “Very stiff,” said Olive, “One reads about the American informality. Tea at Sandringham is giddy beside this. But Mrs. Marlett Smith’s clever. Who were those twins in black velvet who so violently kissed you?”